Customized haptic alerts are highly valued by users because they enable attentional decisions without requiring the distraction of visual review of a user interface or device. Most users use the default setting of haptic effect notifications on the device, but these default settings rely on simple patterns and do not provide a very broad set of vibration patters, and they are often difficult to distinguish from one another. Additionally, each new contact or application requires a user to update the mapping for haptic effects, which can be burdensome for users who have a significant number of contacts, transient contacts, or projects or applications that have a volatile content. Assigning unique haptic notification is these situations is tedious and thus many users do not take advantage of them. While these problems sometimes can be tolerated with smartphone because a user typically can give their phone visual attention, they can be a particular issue with devices that do not have graphical user interfaces such as game controllers, wearable device that are not readily accessible for visual review, and other types of devices that are enabled with haptics.